Heard around the house

It's hard to video Aaron these days. He's developed a bit of self consciousness and is very aware of cameras. Sometimes when he recounts bits of his day, he'll tell us, "I cried" with a big whimper. We tried to tape him doing this once and he actually started crying and yelling, I don't want you the video! So we don't record him as often anymore.

He talks A LOT though. It's fun to have conversations with him and he's really into pretend play. He'll pretend to be a construction worker, or more often, an actual truck.

"It's daytime! Time to wake up!"
- Said 2 inches from my face in the pale light of morning

"I'll do it...at night-time" (or "tomorrow")
"It's too...late" (or early)
"I forgot to brush my teeth/kick the ball/say thank you for the airplane/finish my dinner/cut my nails/clean up[insert any activity mentioned earlier in the day] "
- Anytime he doesn't want to do something, usually used when avoiding the potty or bedtime. He's all about excuses. Already.

"I need my Mommy"
"Mommy, I need my Daddy" (while Isaac is standing right next to me)
- Anytime

"What today is it?" ...followed by "What's [insert name of day] mean?"
- In the morning and at night as he reinforces his schedule


"I'm demolishing the house!"
"I drive this truck. You drive this truck!"
"We're going over there..there's a fire! Now the fire is out and now there's water on top. There's ANOTHER FIRE!"
"I'm a grab excavator. I'm a crane..lifting up the wood frames"
"The stabilizers are down!"
"You go first" or "You do it" or "I want YOU to do it"
"Here's some sugar..and some butter. Let's make pancakes!"
"I need you...I need you to fill up my dump truck [or front loader]!"
"Let's get rolling!"
- During playtime

"Milk and cookies go together PERFECTLY. That's what Puo-Puo says!"
- Cookie time

"I cleaned up! Where's my bitamin?"
- After cleanup time

"My little hands look like raisins!"
- After bath time

"I need a story" followed by "My turn to tell a story!" followed by something like this:
"Once upon a time..I went to get an egg, then we made pancakes...and [mumbles]..somethingelse...and then..[mumbles..something else..we did puzzles..THE END. Your turn!"
-During his bedtime routine

"Ok, Mommy [or Daddy] go work"
- Last thing he says before he falls asleep at night - It's his way of dismissing us and letting us know that he won't be doing his jack-in-the-box routine out of bed anymore.


Here's a video I did catch:

We're gonna need a bigger bed

The Situation:
Aaron first started climbing out of his crib last October. Isaac's family was visiting, and his sister and I were trying to nap in the living room while Aaron was in his crib in the bedroom, crying because he was overtired and wanted to play more. We were both lying down with our eyes closed when we suddenly heard little footsteps and the door burst open. He repeated this feat several times that same night, but then forgot about it for a few months. Recently he started doing it again.



On top of that, he got sick for a while and while he was sick, he refused to sleep alone, so he started bunking with us. Unfortunately his favorite sleeping position is in the middle of Isaac and me, perpendicular to us, sweaty head digging into one person's shoulder, legs on top of or digging into the other person's back or side.

Solution, Part 1:
Once he recovered, he continued to insist on sleeping in our bed. So we thought, "Maybe he prefers the freedom of getting in and out of bed at will. "












Result: This proved to be unsuccessful.

Solution, Part 2:
In an effort to lure him back to his own bed, we bought some new bedding that we knew he would like...

Result:
He loves playing in his bed.


But we are still dealing with this.

Every night.

Catch Up

Aaron's 2nd birthday has come and gone. I wish I've been more diligent about blogging so that I would have something to look back on to remember when he hit milestones or started saying certain phrases or whatnot, but instead I have fuzzy memories. Sadly, I don't remember a lot of milestones. I don't know exactly when he said his first word, or when he got his first tooth. So I'd like to try and post more often to preserve our memories of what he's like right now, but we'll see how that goes.

So let's see..I can't believe I never posted about Halloween! I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. Aaron was a lion, and he HATED HATED HATED his costume. Or more precisely, he hated the hood because the mane felt funny around his face. So he basically looked like some kind of animal from the neck down, but we never got a picture of the full effect. He did enjoy the trick or treating though. And definitely the candy afterwards. He loves "chock-lit".

We spent Christmas in NJ with my family, followed by a vacation with Isaac's family in Portugal and Madrid, where I got sick again. I always seem to get sick on vacation - I don't think I travel well. Luckily, Aaron loooves his grandparents and his aunt and uncles, so he was happy to hang out with them while I laid in bed. Portugal was okay; Madrid was more fun. I wish we had been able to spend more time there - seems like the people there really know how to enjoy life. They had a huge celebration on the Eve of New Year's Eve and another on New Year's Eve. I gotta say, if you ever fly out there, don't fly TAP Portugal. We were on 4 flights, and every single flight had terrible turbulence. Like throw up inducing to I better pray right now turbulence. So anyway, it was a fun trip; it felt too short as always, but it was nice to come home too.

All this was soon followed by Aaron's 2nd birthday! Isaac and I took him to the Children's Museum of Manhattan, then Shake Shack for lunch, and then Curry-Ya for dinner. It's too bad Aaron's a picky eater - he only ate the fries at Shake Shack and dried onion flakes and white rice at Curry-Ya. He doesn't know what he's missing! The next day my family came over and we took his cousins to the Holiday Train Show at Grand Central. It's just a model train display in a room - nothing huge, but Aaron loved it. He's really into tunnels at the moment, so he loved seeing the trains go in and out of them. We had a lot of fun with his cousins, and he got lots and lots of trucks and toys from everyone. He still loves his trucks.

bedtime meltdown

Last month we took a family trip to San Francisco where we got to spend time with Isaac's extended family as well as some old friends. Isaac's aunt and uncle generously opened up their home to all 8 of us, and their kids kindly shared their old Thomas trains with Aaron. He had a fabulous time running the trains around the track.



Problem is, he was having so much fun that he didn't want to stop. He flipped out when we told him it was bedtime. It was one of those instances as a parent when I know I need to be firm, but I can barely contain myself. It was also hard not to provoke him. (I only did it once!)

GUK! Guk! Guk!

Aaron has been walking for a month now. He never really went through that stage of wanting to walk and needing us to help support him. He just kind went straight from crawling to cruising to walking. His personality is starting to reveal itself. He seems to be a fairly easygoing, independent and curious toddler (already?!). His favorite toys are our phones, remotes, thermometers, and empty bottles. He's a very busy, busy, baby. He had a sleepover with his grandparents recently and they kept remarking on how busy he was the whole time. He doesn't enjoy sitting still..which worries me because we have a long plane ride coming up as we head to Asia to visit extended family. But we'll see.

Lately he's gotten really into trucks. We think it's his first word, because he consistently identifies them correctly as "GUK! guk! guk!" everytime he sees a picture or hears a siren. His second and third words may be "ma-ma-ma" or "da-da-da" or possibly, "cop-cop-cop" for helicopter. It's kinda hard to differentiate between "gukgukguk" and "copcopcop". Anyway, here are two videos - one where he's really enjoying his trucks and the other is a little slice of what he does when he's home during the day.


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happy halloween!